Open AccessEstablishment of institutional diagnostic reference level for CT imaging associated with multiple anatomical regions
Author(s) -
Mohd Amir Syahmi Mat Razali,
Muhamad Zabidi Ahmad,
M. A. A. M. Roslee,
Noor Diyana Osman
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/1248/1/012067
Subject(s) - medicine , abdomen , pelvis , thorax (insect anatomy) , nuclear medicine , radiology , computed tomography , radiation dose , percentile , quartile , contrast (vision) , anatomy , statistics , mathematics , confidence interval , artificial intelligence , computer science
Advancement of CT technology has increased the frequency of CT scanning in diagnosis. However, the concern on dose increment that related to radiation-associated health risk from CT also improved. The aim of this study was to establish an institutional diagnostic reference level (DRL) for computed tomography (CT) imaging associated with multiple or combined anatomical regions and compared with other international DRLs. CT dose data of 705 subjects were collected retrospectively from January 2015 until December 2017 at AMDI, USM, Malaysia. The most common CT examination of combined anatomical regions were neck-thorax-abdomen-pelvis (NTAP), thorax-abdomen (TA), thorax-abdomen-pelvis (TAP), and abdomen-pelvis (AP). CT dose data such as CTDI vol , CTDI w and dose-length product (DLP) were collected including contrast, non-contrast, single-phasic, and multiphasic examinations. The 50th and 75th percentile of dose distribution were calculated and compared with other established DRLs. TAP CT was the most frequently performed examination at AMDI (73%). The local dose values of multiphasic and non-contrast examinations were higher compared to single phasic and contrast study. The results show a weak correlation between different CT sequences and DRLs for AP examination. Local dose values reported for all CT examinations were below any international DRLs except for CT TAP (multiphasic) study. The institutional DRL for combined anatomical regions was established using the third quartile values of dose distribution and is categorized based on CT sequences.